ET deals: Save on Dell’s Inspiron 15R Special Edition laptop

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Perhaps one of the biggest non-technical struggles that PC manufacturers face is branding. Just how should they differentiate one model from another and their products from competitors? A special name, fancy logo, or unique design?

But the implications of branding go even further than a marketing person can control. If the product is priced on the high end, people will automatically associate it with being a premium product. Then your product has to live up to those standards, which is not an easy task to balance with a manufacturing and design budget. However, pricing something too low can give people the impression that it is not just inexpensive, but cheap.

These factors are a huge reason why the most popular and high volume PCs are right in the middle of the price, feature, and premium range. For modern day laptops, that means the $700-900 price range with 14-inch and 15.6-inch form factors.

Dell is a company that has long had a bit of a brand identity crisis. For a while, they had so many product lines with so little differentiation that it was very difficult for the consumer to pick out the one that seemed to fit their needs the best. How much of a difference is there between a Studio and XPS omputer? When customers have a short attention span, the last thing you want is to confuse them with your options.

In the past 18 months, Dell has streamlined their product lines and feature sets, making for a set of PCs that are reasonably clear. The Inspiron family is the catch-all: solid general feature set and performance, multimedia suitable, and with prices that range from entry-level to mid-range.

You start with a Core i5-3210M Ivy Bridge chip, with clock speeds between 2.5GHz and 3.1GHz, complemented by 6GB RAM and a 750GB HDD for $849.99. Stepping up to the quad-core Core i7-3612M (2.3GHz-3.1GHz) with 8GB RAM will run you only $100 more, while the top-tier model with 1TB HDD + 32GB mSATA SSD and Blu-ray drive hits $1,049. All models have AMD Radeon HD 7730M 2GB graphics standard to boot.

While the Special Edition laptops start at the high end of the “mainstream” laptop price range, they offer a lot of tech and features for the money. We do see similar laptops in that price range, but they tend to lack the aluminum chassis and standard 1080p screens.